Time is running out on Abbotstown
As Irish politicians gear up for a potential election later this year, will an expensive cricket stadium be their priority?
Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
The root of all of Irish cricket’s problems, or at least the majority, is infrastructure. The island has no permanent cricket facility of its own where matches can be played. If the cost of temporary infrastructure could be avoided, this summer’s Australia series would have still taken place. Instead, Australia will tour Scotland.
Abbotstown, the Sport Ireland campus where Cricket Ireland hopes to one day have a playing oval constructed, is the white knight riding to save our sport. Since 2018, the governing body has been lobbying the Irish government - the bankrollers of the Sport Ireland facility - to cut a rather large cheque.
Six years later there is still no definitive date for the first turning of the sod, let alone when a cricket ball might be bowled.
Along with the desire to avoid the negative image of cutting international fixtures every year, there is the added pressure placed on Cricket Ireland by the ICC. The 2030 men’s T20 World Cup, hosted predominantly by England, should see games take place in Ireland. Will this happen if the country has no proper facility and has to once again use a souped-up club ground?
In recent weeks, Cricket Ireland’s actions suggest a closing window. Reading the Irish political climate also leaves an impression of heightened time pressure. With 2030 in mind, it’s now or never for Abbotstown. If the project doesn’t come to fruition in time, what then for the reputation of the administrators who have pinned their hopes on saving Irish cricket with this stadium?
Around the time of the recent T20 World Cup, Cricket Ireland engaged on a double offensive; one based on ramping up public pressure, the other on charm. Just over a month ago, Cricket Ireland CEO Warren Deutrom gave an interview to website businessplus.ie.
“Time is running out,” acknowledged Deutrom. “We've got a very, very narrow window in which the government needs to make a decision, and we need to put the case forward that this requires significant investment.”
Deutrom explained how cricket pitches require three years to bed in for use in men’s internationals, so development needs to commence in 2025 or 2026 “at a push”. The latter point was timely, given that we saw the disaster of playing on a relatively untested drop-in pitch in New York last month. The ICC will be keen to avoid another optics firestorm.
If that was the gentle attempt at lighting a fire under the government, the softer touch was welcoming the Minister of Sport, Catherine Martin, out to Florida for Ireland’s World Cup matches. Martin, a Green Party TD (member of parliament), is the head of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, the Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Her brief includes Sport Ireland, the taxpayer-funded body which runs the Abbotstown campus. As you can tell from her job title, Martin is a busy politician. By all accounts, Thomas Byrne, the junior minister in her department with responsibility for sport, is more engaged with Sport Ireland and development projects on its campus.
Regardless, Martin flew out to Miami. As well as a Bloomsday event in the Irish consulate, she took in the rain during Ireland’s washout against the USA in Fort Lauderdale. Cricket Ireland officials took the opportunity to use the unsuccessful attempts to dry the outfield to argue for cricket’s need for top notch equipment at Abbotstown. The poor drainage in Florida served as a warning, while one of the ageing super soakers used to mop up the puddles broke mid soak.
Despite the in-person support of a cabinet official, Martin alone does not have final sign off on the public purse strings. She is reliant on budgets which ultimately come from Pascal Donohoe, the minister for public expenditure.
Some in Irish cricket circles expressed optimism when Jack Chambers was recently appointed minister of finance, given the obvious links between that department on Donohoe’s. Chambers, formerly in Byrne’s role of junior minister of sport, was supportive of the Abbotstown project during his time in sport. He was the man who announced the presence of a cricket oval during the next phase of the campus’ masterplan. He is sometimes seen at Phoenix Cricket Club.
Such optimism should be tampered. As a newly minted senior member of cabinet, Chambers likely won’t have the sway required with Donohoe, the minister for public expenditure who ultimately signs government cheques.
Where, then, do all these political machinations leave Cricket Ireland?
There are various stages which Sport Ireland development projects go through. Planning, funding and tender are all key components. Cricket Ireland has essentially gone through the planning stages, with detailed architect drawings sitting in their Kinsealy offices. They are now waiting on the funding to come through, which needs to happen before they can put the stadium out to tender and secure a builder.
What slows everything up is how Sport Ireland projects move one at a time. A velodrome at Abbottstown - to be used for indoor cycling and badminton - is a stage ahead of cricket. Two projects cannot be at the same stage concurrently. The velodrome needs to complete tender before funding is allocated to cricket.
That process of securing funding is inherently political. There are two major factors affecting Irish politics which work against cricket’s hopes.
Firstly, the historic public hostility to large scale infrastructure projects is not helpful. The infamous Bertie Bowl, a stadium envisaged by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, received inordinate levels of public pushback. The venue, supposed to be built on what became the Sport Ireland campus at Abbotstown, never saw the light of day.
The National Aquatic Centre, the first significant development on that campus, was built at a cost of €74 million - a figure which caused controversy. For a more recent example, see Casement Park in Belfast. That saga has the added complexity of Northern Irish sectarianism, but the Irish government has been given a kicking, particularly from those in soccer circles, for contributing €40 million to a GAA stadium north of the border (even if it is supposed to host Euro 2028 matches). The UK cabinet has been admonished for promising to fund an Irish stadium even if it is within their political jurisdiction.
All told, estimates of the cricket stadium’s cost vary. Those with knowledge of the initial plans say a figure of €30 million was touted. With plans including 8,000 permanent seats (with the ability to expand to 20,000 when needed), a state-of-the-art media centre and nursery venue, that figure could well have risen to in excess of €100 million. Some of the desired elements have been cut back to take it below that daunting nine-figure sum.
The second political reality working against Cricket Ireland is around the optics of that cost in a potential political campaign. All indications are that 2024 will be a general election year. The government parties, Fine Gael especially, performed better than anticipated at the recent local elections.
Minister Chambers recently brought forward the budget by a week in September, allowing for a potential campaigning period shortly after. The Sunday Times also reported that Fine Gael has ordered that all its general election candidates be selected by the end of September.
One cause for mild optimism was Tuesday’s announcement that Chambers would include a vastly increased multi-billion tax cut/spending package in the next budget. This is the surest sign yet that this will be the last budget before an election, a peace offering to voters. Might this free up funds for Sport Ireland?
Even at the best of times, spending taxpayer money on a sports stadium is fraught with public backlash. In a potential election year, politicians likely have more popular goodies to hand out such as spending on health. In the grand scheme of the public conscious, cricket means only slightly more than sweet f-all.
No stadium funds before the election almost certainly ensures no money before the end of 2024. A new minister for sport is likely. Relationships will have to be forged once again. Given the size of the department, cricket getting ministerial airtime could well take an age. The prospect of costing, tendering and starting the build at some point in 2025 seems an optimistic timeline. Recent polls suggest it may no longer be likely, but would a Sinn Féin government be receptive to a publicly-funded cricket stadium?
That is the political block. The other obstacle which hasn’t really been debated to any significant extent is whether Abbotstown is actually a good idea.
The expectation from Cricket Ireland is that the government foots the entire bill. Figures on the government side of these discussions have expressed surprise at this assumption from cricket’s representatives.
Several years ago, during the earlier stages of discussion, those with knowledge of the talks said that this wasn’t always the case. The government has in the past been comfortable with covering the full cost, but on the condition that Cricket Ireland pays rent and/or shares the facility with other sports. Archery was mentioned. Cricket Ireland wanted to sell the ground’s naming rights and earn the revenue from that. The government questioned why they should pick up the tab and get nothing back.
It is a legitimate question. Recent games in Florida again provide a warning of what can go wrong when building a cricket ground in a country where the sport is not widely popular. The Broward County International Stadium was built at the expense of $80 million of the taxpayer’s coin. The vision of regular international cricket in Fort Lauderdale never materialised. Locals expressed buyer’s remorse and the ground is now hardly used for its intended purpose. French football team Paris Saint-Germain rent it as the hub for their American academy, ensuring the local government does at least generate some revenue to cover the initial investment. How will the Irish government get bang for its buck?
Very few new cricket stadia are single-purpose and make economic sense. The new Modi-bowl in Ahmedabad - with its 130,000 capacity - has been criticised as a vanity project which only sells enough tickets on IPL final day. In Australia and New Zealand, single-use cricket stadia are a rarity. Even in England, counties building new grounds are turning them into commercial hubs filled with shops and hotels - akin to Hampshire with the Ageas Bowl or Gloucester with their proposed new development south of Bristol.
In that same Business Plus interview, Deutrom revealed that EY, the consulting firm, is putting together a report outlining the economic and social benefits of Abbotstown. These positives are likely to focus on cricket’s status as one of the few sports which can market Ireland as a country to the vast south-Asian market. There is merit to such an idea. Yet in recent times, the business links between businesses in that part of the world and Cricket Ireland have largely extended to illicit gambling companies and Crypto sellers. Even if such questionable links can eventually be worked past, is paying a consultant to write a report in your favour really the trump card which “copper fastens” the case to government which Deutrom and Cricket Ireland think it is?
This ultimately goes beyond the minutiae of infrastructure and prudent use of taxpayer funding. This cuts to the heart of Deutrom’s own legacy as the figurehead of Irish cricket.
When recently asked about longevity given he has been CEO since 2006, Deutrom said he will not stand down any time soon. Abbotstown is his vision. It isn’t difficult to see his likely plan of delivering full membership, a permanent stadium and World Cup hosting duties before riding off into the sunset shortly after 2030. Sport Ireland and the government could well kill that timeline. A year which started with public pressure aplenty on Cricket Ireland given fixture cancellations, questionable methods of finding new board members and even company car controversies could throw up another problem.
Yet the national conversation focusing on cricket would be even louder if, in what is quite possibly an election year, the government writes a cheque featuring zeroes aplenty for a sport which doesn’t capture the imagination of the wider public. Cricket Ireland would then have to deal with seasoned, hawkish politics and news journalists - as opposed to the current small crop of cricket writers.
Abbotstown has been a long-time source of pressure for cricket officials, but now government figures likely recognise its status as a political inconvenience. That is, if cricket even features in their thinking at all in a potential election year.
Sport Northern Ireland’s development of Stormont and Malahide’s willingness to reopen the conversation on developing their clubhouse could well save face. They may well have to come to the rescue should Ireland still host World Cup games in 2030. Some may call this flip-flopping, others adaptability.
In any case, thousands have been spent on architects, planning and scale models. Those funds now look more likely to have been parted with in vain as the political landscape shifts against Cricket Ireland’s Abbotstown dream. At least in time for 2030.
Such optimism should be tampered. - I think that should be "tempered".
"tampered" sounds like a freudian slip given it's cricket relevance.
Great article and insight, thanks mate! As an outside observer of Irish cricket, your team is what made me fell in love with Associate Cricket in the 2007 World Cup. It's really sad to hear that while Afghanistan have gone leaps and bounds since their FM in 2017, Ireland have stagnated and gone backwards.
The playing pool of 50,000+ is decent and also CI will receive more money from ICC going forward, so it's not all doom and gloom. However, this stadium debacle is sad to read! Hopefully they get Abbotstown over the line or can upgrade Malahide permanently so that it doesn't cost like a million euros each time to host games. My fingers are firmly crossed! Keep up the good work.
Also a question, how good or bad do you think Cricket Ireland's outreach efforts are? And is it possible to grow the playing pool further to 75,000-100,000 in the future?